High Holidays

The High Holidays or High Holy Days, in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim (Hebrew: ימים נוראים‎ "Days of Awe"), may mean:

1. strictly, the holidays of Rosh Hashanah ("Jewish New Year") and Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement");
2. by extension, the period of ten days including those holidays, known also as the Ten Days of Repentance (Aseret Yemei Teshuvah); or
3. by a further extension, the entire 40-day penitential period in the Jewish year from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur, traditionally taken to represent the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai before coming down with the second ("replacement") set of the Tablets of stone.